General Question

Should I try to start a relationship with my roommate, who has a FWB?

Hi there, people. Here’s my situation, hopefully I can articulate it well enough…

Let me start off by saying that I have never had a girlfriend, and I’m a virgin, so I’m pretty inexperienced as far as this kind of thing goes. I’m a 19-year-old guy, and my roommate and friend is a girl the same age. We’ve been roommates since the start of the school year. We both attend university in this city, but we come from different hometowns.

We met each other through some mutual friends at the end of this past April, and we really hit it off and connected well. We both thought of each other as really cool people, and I became kind of infatuated with her. I thought she might have felt the same way (though I am bad at judging this), but she left just 2 days later to go live back in her hometown for the summer. We kept in touch through Facebook and chatted a fair bit.

At some point, to my complete surprise, she asked me if I wanted to be her and her best friend’s roommate during the upcoming school year. Of course, I jumped at the chance. Admittedly, I had been thinking about trying to start a relationship with her. She’s beautiful, but more importantly she’s a really cool person, and we get along really well and have a lot in common.

We eventually found a place to rent, and her and her best friend moved in a week or two before I arrived in town at the start of September. The first night I spent at our new place, a mutual friend of ours who’s several years older came over, and she slept with him.

Since then, I’ve found out that they’re not really boyfriend-girlfriend, but they’re basically friends with benefits, and they had been sleeping together since the night she came back into town after the summer. She’s said that they haven’t really thought about what their relationship really is. (She volunteered this information just a few days ago – I didn’t ask her.)

I haven’t been losing sleep over this, but I do still have feelings for her. I’m worried that if I were to tell her how I feel, she would get weirded out and it would damage our friendship, which I really wouldn’t want to lose. I can accept the possibility of her not reciprocating my feelings, but I really don’t want us to stop being friends.

Should I go for it? Should I back off and let everything be and move on? What do you think I should do? Like I said, I have close to zero experience with these kinds of things, so any advice at all is appreciated.

11 Answers

Since you live with her, it might be more awkward than if you didn’t if she doesn’t feel the same way. However, it is great that you are considering a relationship with her. As someone who has had FWBs in the past, it can feel like no one will ever want to be your boyfriend if you have a history with those kinds of relationships.

Since the two of you are roommates, and she has a FWB person in her life, it sounds like it would be better to not pursue a potential relationship for now. Think about it…what if she isn’t interested? How comfortable would you be sharing a place with her? What if she is, and then you find out that the FWB is still in the picture on a sexual level? Would you be okay with that?

Just take your time about it. There is always the chance that after seeing her in such close quarters, she may not be as ideal as you initially imagined.

As roommates, it can be awkward if you make a pass at a roommate and she shoots you down. But it shouldn’t be too awkward, unless you keep on pressuring her. Eventually it could get to a situation where it’s just too uncomfortable to remain roommates and you have to move out.

So how’s your other roommate look? Because sometimes if you hit on one roommate and strike out, the other one has a thing for you and you get a consolation relationship. Which can be nice, unless one of you takes it too seriously and the other doesn’t feel the same.

The real problem is if you succeed with the girl you like, and you get involved and she tells her fwb to get lost . Then, later on, you break up. Now that’s awkward. So it’s always a risk hitting on a roommate, although it happens all the time, and many a relationship has come from it.

I’d say you can’t predict in advance what will happen. If you’re not worried about finding a new place to live if you need to, then I’d say to go for it. If you’re cool with her turning you down and seeing her fwb show up all the time, then go for it.

But if you want to try to maintain stability and a good living situation, then I’d hold off. I’d look for a relationship outside the apartment.

Me, I could never hold off. I would probably wait until things cool off with the fwb. Or they might turn into something more serious. But once the situation became clearer, I’d go for it, or not, depending on how it clarified. Of course, you have an advantage. You’re there all the time. You can talk to her and eat with her and flirt with her and console her and everything, and get drunk with her late at night and sometimes one thing leads to another. You never know. So it might be best to be cool about it and just wait to see what happens.

Ha ha :P I’m not attracted to her in that way, and she already has an actual boyfriend in any case.

“The real problem is if you succeed with the girl you like, and you get involved and she tells her fwb to get lost.”

Both me and my roommate were actually friends with him already, for months before I ever met her. Everyone’s part of a circle of friends, and he’s a good guy, so I don’t think she would tell him to get lost or anything like that. I wouldn’t want to drive a wedge between me and him, either.

Basically, I’m just worried that telling her might have some kind of chaotic effect on all of us, but I don’t know if that’s at all realistic.

Why not just wait it out for now? Perhaps let the fwb thing run it’s course? You never know how soon something like that ends up.

You say that you don’t want to lose her friendship or do anything to jeopardize it. So, for now, just bide your time and enjoy the friendship and allow it to grow naturally.

As already pointed out, you’re in the perfect position for that since you live together.

An ever deepening friendship is a far more solid basis for a long lasting relationship than any type of fwb arrangement. Fwb is by definition shallow, since both are avoiding commitment.

I’m assuming you’re aiming for something more than that. But, if I’m reading you wrong and you’d be ok with being just another fwb guy, then it doesn’t much matter when you make a move.

But if you’re looking at this girl as a possible long term mutually commited relationship and eventually perhaps “the one” then let your friendship grow naturally and deepen more and more as time passes.

Since you’re roommates, that should be happening naturally But the second that fwb guy is out of the picture, (since by nature it’s temporary) take the opportunity to let her know the depths of your true feelings.

Trying to do that prematurely could very well derail the friendship you have with her now before it’s had the chance to deepen, as it will just because you two are in proximity every day. That is your distinct advantage over Mr. Temporary.

Let time be your friend. Even without realizing it, you might be growing on her with each passing day. In the meantime, date other girls and just live a happy life.

If she does develop romantic feelings for you, whether she acknowledges it openly or not, she will drop fwb guy.

If she doesn’t develop a romantic interest in you, there’s not a whole lot to be done about that. People dig whom they dig. Hopefully, as she gets to know you better, she’ll be digging you.

How did you become aware of it to begin with? And is this something generally known by the other people in this group?

If she ended the fwb arrangement because she has romantic feelings for you, I’m sure she’d figure out a way to casually mention it :)

If it simply ends for whatever reason. I’m guessing he wouldn’t be around that much. Is he in the habit of sleeping over now or does he just go back to his place? I mean, is he there in the morning for breakfast or not?

I found out after the 3 of us had gone out for dinner the first night I lived there… then when we got home and went to bed, I saw them kiss and close the bedroom door behind them, and then I heard them having sex through the walls. I thought it was actually kind of funny, in spite of it all.